A big thank you to everyone for such a wonderful event

It is such a privilege and honour for all of us here at Pariposa to introduce our Guest of Honour

Gracing us with her presence for the 2nd consecutive year; is our Guest of Honour, Dr Huiling Chua. Dr Chua is currently the mentor for Early Childhood Centre Leadership at the NTUC First Campus, and was the Ex Regional Vice-President of the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education. She has also been Ms Sonia’s mentor almost a decade.

As a mentor and true educator, she has yet again made time to be here with us despite all her other commitments. If you were here last year, you may recall that many would consider her to be a part of the pioneering generation of educators who have established many pathways in Early Childhood Education. It is without a doubt, her wisdom of & commitment to the industry & our children that has played a key role in shaping the philosophy and pedagogy of not only Pariposa, but educators who have been under her mentorship. It is our privilege & honour to have her at our Year end Concert to present the certificates to our graduating students.

Here is her speech in case you missed it:

Good Morning parents, dear children, teachers and friends, What a joy and an honour to be here today to celebrate what Pariposa has done over the past year.

Sonia and her team have chosen very forward-thinking and important ideas to prepare your children for the future and I sincerely congratulate them. These 3 areas are of extreme importance to our well-being in the coming years.

It really warms my heart so much and with great pride, too, Sonia being my former student and teacher at another school… to see the selection of these three areas. The children and parents here are very blessed to have had these emphases here as it is not the conventional curriculum.

Rest assured while they are emphasizing these areas, Sonia knows how to ensure the academic skills are skillfully woven into the activities as well!

Let’s begin first with loving the environment which Pariposa says begins with interacting with the living things in it.

They have got it right! Climate change and the ravages of the environment by our use and abuse of the earth’s resources are real, my friends.

If you are still not convinced for the sake of your children’s future do some research on it. And research is clear that if we want children to care for the environment we must first work on a relationship with the elements within. Children must learn about and care about plants, animals, and understand the elements of weather and its effects on them.

Reducing, recycling and reusing, and even repairing will not be meaningful especially in the adult years if children do not learn about and care about these things in early childhood. For why will the three or 4 Rs be important to them — saving the earth — if they have never cultivated meaningful relationships with the earth and its living elements?

Parents, do go out with your children more, enjoying and exploring the free flora and fauna around! I have just returned from an excursion in Canada to look for polar bears in the wild and was initially anxious that I might see really skinny ones because of the ravages of climate change.

Thankfully, I didn’t. But their numbers are slowly but surely decreasing.

And now for Loving the community. What a joy to hear that Pariposa is going this way. For years the schools and teachers I’ve worked with have embraced inclusion of children of all abilities and national origins. It has been wonderful to see how the children receive every child in their school as their friends, and how they have helped one another, regardless of race and ability, in so many ways.

Prejudice is a learnt trait my friends. The children hear, see, and subsequently carry out our responses and actions towards different people, including the elderly or people in need.

 If in school, and at home they understand that we are all part of the human race, sharing similar basic needs and desires, we learn to accept and help one another. At these schools I’ve worked in and I’m sure at Pariposa, too, it was easy to say the children (from all nations) were both colour blind and ability blind.

They were all friends and would try to help one another when one needed more assistance or understanding. Isn’t this the kind of world we would want to live in?

Finally, the children should learn to love themselves. This is the most important thing — not our dreams and our plans for them and for their success. Singapore is frightfully materialistic and competitive to the detriment of our children.

We are responsible as teachers, parents, and grandparents, to give them a good sense of self. Without a good self-esteem it is impossible for them to have a sense of where they would like to strive to go and be truly happy. With good self-esteem they can face failures and see them not as set-backs but as opportunities to learn from mistakes and to do better.

Build our children up emotionally. Don’t tear them down with our careless words. I heard a mother share how she tells her child its her attitude and approach to learning in school that is more important than her grades. How gratifying. If I may, I would like to end with a short verse from the song ” The greatest love of all”

“I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way, show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier, let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be. Everybody’s looking for a hero, we all need someone to look up to….”

Dear parents, grandparents, teachers and friends…., Are we ready to be the children’s heroes? I hope we are.

Congratulations graduating children and the teachers! Its time to celebrate. Thank you.

 

Here are some Videos of the event

You can find more photos and videos on our facebook page